Barnett vs Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee
Reference : 1 QB 428 [1969]
Jurisdiction : England
Plaintiff : Mrs. Barnett
Defendant : Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee
Facts :
On January 1, 1966, at approximately 8:00 AM, three night watchmen arrived at the emergency department of a hospital managed by the Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee. They reported experiencing severe stomach pain and vomiting after consuming tea around 5:00 AM. The medical officer of the casualty department, Dr. Banerjee, was not present in the hospital at that moment. When the nurse contacted him by phone, he declined to attend to the patients and advised them to return home and seek treatment from their respective personal doctors. Subsequently, one of the three men, Mr. Barnett, died. After that, the postmortem reports revealed that he died of Arsenic poisoning.
Later, Mrs. Barnett claimed that her husband’s death was a result of negligence of the hospital and filed a lawsuit against the Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee
Decision :
The court found that the hospital was not liable for the death of Mr. Barnett. The court states that, ❝…since he must have died of the poisoning even if he had been admitted to the wards five hours before his death and treated with all care, the plaintiff had failed to establish on the balance of probabilities that the defendants’ negligence had caused the death…❞
Author :
1. Md. Atikur Rahman
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